Maybe the best experience in my writing career came in October 2007 and, like the momentary brilliance that’s felt when the words are seamless and beautiful, my satisfaction passed quietly, without being shared. My brother and I stood on a corner about 12th and Walnut, among the cold-metal and glass high-rises, near a pizzeria with checked tablecloths and pulled an Urban Times magazine from a display box. We were on our way to our first concert at the Sprint Center and my article about stalled plans for a light rail system in Kansas City graced the cover. I was in love with the cover. I’d been given a preliminary look at the cover art work weeks before. I remember sitting down to write the story only a few hours before it was due and feeling immense pressure to live up to the billing on the cover and the thousands who would be reading it solely because it was so prominent and so beautiful. Then I managed to write and write furiously, a transference of rail scenes and how everyone else saw the failing initiative. In a few hours, I pounded out the 1,400-word story, the technical language, the commentary from expert sources and city officials I’d spoken to. (more…)
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Tags: Family Life
Girly voices flow above the running water, amplified on the tiled floor and porcelain. The smells of soap and vapor seep into the bedroom and hall, and if it weren’t for the closed windows and pulled drapes, the house feels as fresh as spring time.
The trees are bare behind the houses. All day the wind has pulled at the frail tree branches that shed leaves in late October and have been burned in leaf piles. With the sun freshly lowered, the moonlight casts cool shadows on the street-parked cars and house fronts. (more…)
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Tags: Family Life, Kids
Naughty Words
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
The word “poop” is as dirty as they come in the conversation circles of the children we’re raising. For them, it is the age equivalent to the F-bomb, somehow more profane than “bottom” and “butt,” and not yet crossing the imaginary line I’ve drawn at “hell.”
If I remember right, I was swearing full on by third grade, so somewhere in the next two years, my daughter who started kindergarten this year will be exposed to words much more offensive than I’ve spoken in her presence. The culprit that teaches her the new words no doubt lives in a mile radius (the same radius statistics show that I am likely to be involved in a deadly car accident) from where I sit contemplating my kids’ eventual potty mouths. (more…)
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Half past two o’clock on Sunday afternoon and though it’s broad daylight, it’s as if someone has turned the lights down on the world.
Children lie by open windows, lulled gently to sleep by sounds far off or not so far in the distance, vacuums and saw blades, small engines and jet engines. Motorcycles being revved in garages with calendars hung on the walls (not for the dates, but for the women) and planes flying high over rooftops – is the music that scores and animates their dreams. (more…)
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Corner Cafe
Saturday, August 16th, 2008
We took a table on the corner next to wooden box planters with purple salvia. The kids sat in the wrought iron chairs at one end and my wife and I on the other. Historic buildings streched down the long hill lined with full and shapely pear trees. At 5 p.m., the middle-August sun was warm on our shoulders and bare skin. For the Midwest, there has been a relative cold spell the last few days with temps topping out in the low 80s when normally the grass has been roasted and starched yellow – the same consistency as cigarette paper.
We’d never been to this place before and, in fact, we had only decided to stay under the auspices that we would be able to find a family-friendly place to eat. We’d been shopping for knick-knacks and antiques at the Goodwill in Bonner Springs on the strip close to the main drag and the interstate. Bonner, as the locals refer to it, also has a small historic district that sits on limestone hillsides overlooking the river. The drive is only 20 minutes or so from our house, but it’s just far enough away and different enough to feel like a mini-vacation. Neither my wife nor I expected that we would come to care so much about this town or a few of its residents in the short three hours we’d spend there. (more…)
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